Buy Swiss Army Watch

The Swiss Armed Forces perform the roles of Switzerland's militia and regular army. Under the country's militia system, professional soldiers constitute only about 5 percent of military personnel; the rest are conscript citizens 18 to 34 (in some cases up to 50) years old.

obtain by purchase; acquire by means of a financial transaction; "The family purchased a new car"; "The conglomerate acquired a new company"; "She buys for the big department store"

Obtain in exchange for payment

Pay someone to give up an ownership, interest, or share

bargain: an advantageous purchase; "she got a bargain at the auction"; "the stock was a real buy at that price"

Procure the loyalty and support of (someone) by bribery

bribe: make illegal payments to in exchange for favors or influence; "This judge can be bought"

Man, Ivory Coast

June 2: I feel like we sleep a bit longer than usual, but I’m not sure. I go to breakfast that is served by the Centre, and fortunately I’m not too late. I have bread with butter and really good homemade preserves of pineapple and papaya (I think). I also make some cocoa with Nesquik and warm milk. The best breakfast in weeks.We’re going to the Dent today, and Melanie has decided on Mount Tonkoui. She leaves just before we do. I take my backpack with water, my camera, Swiss Army knife, and this book. Alan puts a few things in as well. We leave our room key with reception and head for town. The plan is to get to town and find out how to get to the nearby village of Glonguin, at the base of the Dent. From there we can find the path ourselves or ask about a guide (god knows there are many people wanting to be one!)

In town, we half-heartedly look for the road to the village, but end up on a dirt road going through the edge of town straight to the Dent. I guess we’re going to try and attack this thing head-on. As we walk among the last few houses, a couple of jerks start hassling us about what we’re doing, where we’re going, etc. Alan gets very defensive and starts shouting back, which pisses the guys off even more. I tell Alan to calm down. The last thing we need is to get into a fight. They finally leave us alone.The road splits in two and we take the wrong one, but soon we’re able to hop over a creek between the two and get back on track. The road is now becoming rougher as it hugs the foothills of the Dent. The scenery is beautiful- dense forest all around us, with the occasional big tree (with the buttressed trunk) poking out. We can hear the nearby creek in the deepening gorge on our left. The road begins a series of steep climbs, and I soon become sweaty and winded- boy am I out of shape! Alan is up ahead and seems to be fine.

At one point it seems that the road is moving away from the mountain, but we see no other path. Up ahead, two women emerge from a nearby road and we try to ask for directions (they speak no French). They seem to be saying to take the road from which they are coming, and later turn to the left toward the Dent. So we go down this other road, which is going in the opposite direction, but hugs the mountain a bit closer than the previous road. After five or ten minutes, this new path begins to go steadily downhill, and is clearly not taking us to the Dent. Alan finds a small path (very small) going through the bushes up toward the Dent (the cliffs and the summit are about, oh, three or four kilometers away, which includes a significant vertical distance). The hike becomes much more of a climb, and we hardly see the ground because of the vegetation. We hop over an increase in large rocks on the ground.Soon we come to a slash-and-burn clearing, like what Melanie and I saw yesterday. This seems a bit bigger. In the bushes on the other edge of this clearing we can hear someone hacking away. We continue on. Another small path followed by another clearing. It becomes apparent that there is no more path and that we need to go down a bit, around a big area of bush, then up again in another area of the clearing. After this, we still find no path, which really sucks. So we start cutting through the bushes (actually, trampling through). It’s rough, but do-able. We come to some large boulders; there should be another clearing, path, or something around them. No.Eventually we are deep in the forest/jungle. For two hours we go through something I’ve never been through before. Solid vegetation. We trample and push things out of the way. We scramble across moss-covered rocks and slide down small cliffs on our asses until we hit a tangle of bushes. We get tangled in vines. We’re mercilessly nabbed and scratched by thorns all around. We’re on all fours, crawling in the dirt. We scramble, slide, slip, fall, curse, grunt, pant, and grab on to anything to keep from falling. We crash through a mess of plants and detritus that we think is the ground. A part of me that wasn’t dirty, scratched, sore, bruised, fatigued, or sweaty was kind of having fun with the crazy adventure.Sometimes we could see the big cliffs of the summit loom above us somewhere; we were obviously making slow, sometimes backward progress. If we were ever able to reach the cliffs anyway, we would still have to go around them to a climbable face of the mountain. We hear the nearby voices of people, possibly cutting things down, and even the barking of a dog. Alan decides to head for these sounds, but we never find their sources. At one point we sit for a few minutes on a big rock, although there’s nothing to see around us except for more green. Alan doesn’t seem interested in taking a break, despite the fact that he says he’s feeling light-headed.So we do more hacking, crawling, and scrambling. I’m bleeding, bruised, and dirty beyond belief. Finally at mid afternoon we come to a clearing and start going down. We meet a woman working

Things i carry

Things i carry with me. I actually only either carry the Mt. Rosa sling bag or the Backpack (the backpack more lately, the Mt. Rosa or the Booq Bag without my powerbook in it is what i carry if i go out i keep my camera and my axim usually in those bags) the stuff i carry for work i usually leave at work, but sometimes i'm out in the field and i'll have to carry it with me.

Things i carry but you dont see-Toothbrush, toothpaste, small bar of soap all in a plastic baggie, and a first aid kit(extra's just incase, cause if the boy scouts taught me anything, its be prepared-All the chargers i use for all my electronic equipment (Powerbook Adapter, cell phone chargers, camera charger, Dell Axim Charger.) -House and Car Keys (really they go in my pocket as well as my chapstick) -Spare Ethernet cable-Bottle of H20-Crackers and a snickers bar-Lots of paperwork...-My IT Field Kit (which as XP Pro slipstreamed with SP2, screwdrivers and bits, Symantec Antivirus, Microsoft Office XP and Driver's on a CD of computers we use at work, a 512 Gb Thumbdrive and a 10Gb USB/Firewire Combo external Drive) -My Bible